Home At Last | Chincoteague Island, Virginia
This was one of those “right place at the right time” kind of shots. My wife and I had just finished having dinner with my family at a nice downtown restaurant when I noticed that the shelf of thick clouds abruptly ended just above the horizon. With sunset minutes away, I knew that there was the possibility of some awesome light when the sun crept below the cloud line, but it would be brief. I convinced her to hurry back to my Jeep with me and we drove over to the docks facing the sunset. We arrived just in time to see the sun break below the clouds. Just as I started shooting, this commercial fishing boat came chugging along the bay. I was able to capture two or three shots of it before the sun sunk below the horizon and the boat sailed away. Sometimes the best thing for photography is a little luck and good timing (and a patient wife)!
The Shot: Single exposure, tripod held, remote triggered. Nikon D90, 18-105mm VR Nikkor lens @ 42mm. Settings- f/9, ISO 200, 1/30 sec shutter.
©2011 Zach Frailey
Assateague Lighthouse | Assateague Island, VA
History: The 142-foot tall Assateague Island lighthouse was built in 1867 to help ships navigate the dangerous shoals of the island on the coast of Virginia. Assateague Lighthouse actually enjoys an opposite conditions that threatens many other great lighthouses. Where most lighthouses today are threatened by erosion, the land mass around Assateague Lighthouse has been filling in. Since being built, the waterline of the inlet has been “pushed back” close to 5 miles away from the light due to the constant, natural deposits of land.
Processing: I shot this image in 2009 and just revisited it today. It’s a single exposure, well baked in Photoshop. First, I fixed the color and straightened it out. I shot this on my old D40, and my photography was in it’s early stages. The sky was grey and blown out, so I replaced it. Using Nik Color Efex, I added a Tonal Contrast and a Pro Contrast filter to it. Finally, I added a Gaussian Blur on the entire image followed by a layer mask using the gradient tool to blur the water in the foreground.
©2011 Zach Frailey, Please do not use without permission.
Sunrise on the Bay
Chincoteague Island, VA
I’m starting to get pretty excited for my annual journey to Chincoteague, so I decided to go back through the archives for this one. I’m not sure if this really is a bay, but it is a continuation if the Assateague Bay near Black Point Landing. Just around the bend, the whole thing empties into Tom’s Cove and the Atlantic Ocean. This was shot from Veteran’s Memorial Park facing the Assateague Lighthouse.
©2011 Zach Frailey
Searching for Two Needles in a Really Big Haystack
Each and every summer, my family takes two weeks to go on vacation on Chincoteague Island, Va. I’ve grown up and moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina, but this summer my wife and I decided to take the trip to Chincoteague to stay with them for a few days. Ashley and I have gone before, in fact the island is where I proposed to her two years ago and we visited last summer a few weeks before our wedding. This summer was a little different though. Now living in North Carolina, we were very pleasantly surprised to see that it was only about a four hour drive to reach Chincoteague (vs. the eight or nine hour trip from western PA). This great fact aside, we still were unsure of whether we would be able to go. We had already traveled great distances this summer, but in the end decided that we had a great opportunity to visit a place we loved with my family on our First Anniversary weekend, so we did it.
Chincoteague is a great place. I can’t recommend it enough. It has gone through its fair share of changes over the years (I still vividly remember the sand dunes, visitor’s center and bath houses that have since been leveled by hurricanes), but it still maintains its small-town relaxing vibe. We had no problem waking up at 7:00 am every day and taking a bike ride around town for a few hours. It is that relaxing.
We had a great time on our trip. My family seemed very happy that we were able to come and I am very grateful to have a family that takes a trip and is more than willing to let us stay with them and feed us while we’re there. Not to mention, I’m sure my little brother was extremely happy to have someone there other than mom and dad :)
I can’t conclude this post without sharing a story about our last day at the beach. The water was rough and the tide was coming in. A large wave washed up over our chairs, and out of fear of my camera getting wet, I decided to take it and some other stuff to the car. When I came back, there were over a dozen people on their hands and knees sifting the sand where we had been sitting. Confused, I asked what was going on. My wife’s wedding and engagement rings had been washed off her chair in the wave. At the time the wave came up, she was applying sunscreen and momentarily took them off. Through bad luck and bad timing the wave decided to encroach upon us at that time. Initially I thought to myself there is no way that we are finding those rings, they could be anywhere. More and more people joined in to help. The search continued and everyone was on edge waiting for the next big flood of water to come up. If that happened, we were sure there would be no hope for the rings. Suddenly, someone stood up and said “Is this it?” They had found the wedding band! Incredible! The search continued and shortly after finding the first ring, someone found the engagement ring. I couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t like searching for two needles in a really, really big haystack. So many people pitched in to help too. We are incredibly thankful that everyone helped out and feel very lucky indeed. Wouldn’t it have been ironic that the place where I gave her the ring was the place that it was forever lost? And on our one year anniversary? Sheesh, what a day!
This is the old drawbridge crossing onto Chincoteague Island, Va. It has recently been replaced by a 3/4 mile bridge/drawbridge just down the shore. My family and I crossed over this bridge every summer since I was a new born on our way to vacation and I am sad to see it go. I just returned from this summer’s visit to the island and am pretty sure this is my last time seeing its rusting steel mass. It is scheduled to be dismantled, lowered onto a barge and taken away soon.
(Prints of this photo are available now! Click the Order Prints button to the right to be redirected to me order page.)
©2010 Zach Frailey
